The Pirates of Penzance

General Stanley's daughters at the beach	'Climbing over rocky mountains'	The maids liked the look of Frederic	The disapproving governesses and nannies
A desperate band of pirates	Ruth, a piratical maid of all work	'I've information vegetable, animal and mineral'	'A better Major-General has never sat a gee'
'They are pirates, Papa'	'O men of dark and dismal fate'	'O happy day'	'Hail poetry'
'Dear father, why leave your bed?'	Frederic and Mabel	'Go to death and go to slaughter!'	'A policeman's lot is not a happy one'
'In Queen Victoria's name'	Pirates forgiven

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Synopsis of the Plot

Somewhere in Cornwall a rollicking band of soft-hearted pirates is quaffing sherry by the tankard full in celebration of the apprentice Frederic's 21st birthday. He is a moral young man, however, and (once out of his indentures) intends to exterminate the piratical band. The Pirate King seems largely unconcerned by the threat and wishes Frederic luck, even giving him Ruth, the piratical maid-of-all-work, to go with him.

Ruth, although considerably older, has almost persuaded Frederic that she is beautiful, when the entrance of a bevy of lovely maidens foils her scheme. When the girls have overcome their shock at meeting a real live pirate, one of them, Mabel, falls in love with him. Just then the rest of the pirate gang appear and capture the rest of the maidens.

Enter the father of the girls, Major General Stanley, who is not at all happy at the thought of having pirates as sons-in-law. By means of a falsehood, he manages to save himself from death and his daughters from the fate of matrimony. Ruth makes one last attempt on Frederic but is repulsed.

Act Two finds the Major General regretting his falsehood; Frederic, now free from the pirates, calls on the local police force to aid him in their destruction. The police set off upon their dread adventure very reluctantly. Meanwhile, the Pirate King and Ruth pin Frederic down and inform him that it is not his 21st birthday after all and that he is still a member of their band. The young man is a slave to duty and realises that he must ally himself once more with the pirates.

After some to-ing and fro-ing between pirates and policemen (in which the Major General does not help), the denouement is unravelled in typically Gilbertian fashion.